J2Ski Forum Posts and Replies by verbier_ski_bum

It's getting boring. It's illegal in France end of. All Le Ski is doing with the appeal process is buying the time and creating public opinion. There are people who rely on this work for their income and living and I don't believe that they shouldn't be sidelined in favour of those who do it for fun. Anyway, SCGB is also offering hosting for their members and it will be done not by reps but by qualified personnel, and will be charged for. Like it or not there are two options: want a real person to provide the service, then pay, don't want to pay - there is an app for you, have a nice day. Nothing wrong with it and I always felt baffled by people who like being served but don't like paying for services. It's the catered chalet situation over again.

It's a mountainous country, but the proposed site for Alpine events close to Beijing doesn't tend to get any natural snow. I've seen pictures and it looks depressing. Yes, it's cold enough for snow-making, but given the environmental impact I believe that international events like Olympics shouldn't be endorsing snow-making. I do understand that this is what many resorts heavily rely on as well, there are also snow-domes and other hideosities, costly to environment, that will eventually leave the world without any other skiing, but they are private entities. Anyway, I've lost interest in Olympics once it became clear it's not about sport, but mainly about business. Last year the only events I watched were moguls as we were hiding in a slope-side restaurant from weather and it was showing the event. Otherwise I wouldn't bother to waste electricity on this nonsense.

But much easier in lift lines and after off-loading. Never hurts to make an approximate plan before leaving a chalet too and work from there:) I check first thing the running installations, avy stuff and webcams to get an idea what a day might be like. It works just fine, and I am sure the trend of using apps will catch up with most people very quickly. I heard there would be even Tinder-style app for dating on slopes soon:)

It's illegal in France nonetheless so application seems like a good solution. A well developed app (some resorts actually already provide apps that give all necessary information about conditions and open runs (with ratings and lengths) and installations, weather, avalanche bulletins, on-slopes restaurants, web-cams and even let you locate other skiers on slopes if you register. If these apps don't exist in France, Crystal is doing a good service by developing one. Lot of things these days are done via web, so why not ski-related? It's 2015 after all.

Gareth Fair wrote:I do agree about Avioraz being a horrendously ugly place though. Also Italy could be a great destination for them, Cervinia?

Cervinia is not particularly pretty :)))

Technical skill and knowledge and ability to pass it on. And full legal qualifications. Having a good guide is important so when people say what they think a good guide is it's the same as if they say what's important :)

I think I saw the same question asked on Snowheads and I think you are starting from the wrong end. You need to build up a strong base of instructors first, not asking what potential clients want as they will have varying requests and expectations based on individual levels and goals. ANY top level instructor should normally be able to address those, so they are who you need to look for and try to convince to become a part of your project. Clients will come once you have something to offer. As of now ski schools are matching clients with instructors for private lessons fairly successfully. The same goes for guiding. I always ski with the same instructor and the guide. personal general expectation of instructors is that they are holding the highest local qualifications - Austrian in Austria, French in France, Swiss in Switzerland etc., and know the area well. Guides should be native/local or at least permanently based in the area where they guide. I won't trust the guide who doesn't know what a particular mountain is like without snow on.

Unless in Southern Hemisphere skiing in this weather is totally crazy. I was in a tank top and shorts yesterday at 3300 m, and I wasn't even remotely cold despite hanging around there for quite some time. I have never seen so little snow on mountain peaks - basically everything is gone, the only white I could see were the glaciers.